Transposing Broadway ― Jews, Assimilation, and the American Musical

Over the last hundred years, musical theatre artists - from Berlin, to Rodgers and Hammerstein, to Sondheim - have developed a form that corresponds directly to the Americanization of the increasingly Jewish New York audience. Musicals became a paradigm which instructed newcomers in how to assimilate while correspondingly envisioning "American Dream" America as democratic and inclusive. Broadway musicals continue to function today as "cultural Ellis Islands" for fringe populations seeking acceptance into the nation's mainstream - including women, blacks, Latinos, and gays - all essentially modeled upon the Jewish example. Hecht offers a fascinating examination of the relationship between Jews, assimilation, and the changing face of the American musical.

Stuart J. Hecht is Associate Professor of Theatre at Boston College, USA. He is the long-standing editor of New England Theatre Journal and formerly served on the artistic staffs of both the Goodman Theatre and the one-time Wisdom Bridge Theatre in Chicago, USA.